God walked in Eden in the cool of the day.
A Father ventures into the son’s world to enjoy his son’s work from that day. The father, now resting from his own work, the garden, loves to see how his son’s work adds to it. The son lives inside his father’s work, while adding his own work. The son’s work is to tend and improve the father’s work, then gift it all to his own children in their time. In this way paradise is built. This is biblical wealth: accumulated generational work
The father doesn’t need to live there. But he does live..somewhere close by. Close enough to see the son’s fresh work every day. Presumably, Adam should have created a home for his children, gifts for them, perhaps gardens next door.
So this liturgy of fatherhood opens with a movement of father toward son, and the son presents his work from the day. I like to imagine the liturgy would culminate in the father pronouncing his liturgical climax “It is very good” over the work, like he had done over his own 7 day project earlier.
After the fall, we see the broken world only against the backdrop of this same liturgy, which still lives in the father’s mind. As He enters Eden he expects to be greeted but is not, and so asks “Where are you?” Where are you. The father’s question doesn’t need to be explained away by theologians in some embarassed defense of an abstract deity. The sinful couple, now ashamed and hiding from God behind a bush, are actually hiding. They have chosen not be seen by God. The one thing omniscience cannot overcome is the free chose He chose to put into his children. They chose to be in a place He had not prepared for them, so He literally doesn’t know where they are. (Note: a location with no known relation is what we’ve labelled “random”. This spot behind the bush is the origin of what the New Testament calls the “world” – the place not mapped by the Creator.).
We also see a fragment of the same liturgy, a broken liturgy if you will, in the opening scene of Job, which recapitulates the Genesis scene. Note the actual purpose of the throne room scene: “…the sons of god came to present themselves”. This is the feeling of Genesis 2; it is appropriate for the sons to present themselves. And, like in Genesis, Satan appears, for after all, he is one of the creatures. This Liturgy of Fatherhood is actually where he belongs, it’s as if he is drawn, as if to his own center of gravity, no matter how much he might hate his father.
So naturally, when he appears, the correct liturgical rubric, repeated here just like in fallen Eden: “Where have you been?”. The Father places Satan in the role of the prodigal son, inviting him to confess and come home. Again, the question is simply true: Satan doesn’t function in the place created for him, so, to the Father, he is lost. The good son, upon hearing these words, has a pierced heart and comes running to his father, sorry that the father even had to ask.
Satan answers with the equivalence of “oh, just here and there”, in our dialect. He agrees that his travels, though destructive, follow no map, are on no path the Father knows, and in fact he moves about at random. The random is the mode of knowledge of the demonic realm. Just here and there, no place is any better than any other.
He then reveals his one purpose as he uses his audience with the Father to challenge and mock his Father’s view of the world. His passion is to prove the universe is not the one the Father made. He is an angry and bitter child.
Every day, we must find our sons anew, even if they are behind the bush.
Let us be clear that it is not precisely just for the father to have to seek the son. It is not natural. It should work just the opposite. The relationship is only perfected when the son watches the face of the father and moves in harmony with his father’s slight expressions. Jesus sought the face of His Father daily, even on the day His Father forsook Him. But even though it is not fair, after the Fall, the father seeks the son.
He seeks because if he doesn’t he leaves the son at the mercy of the snake. Our unity with him is his only protection from perdition.
A gardener goes out every day to look at his flowers. He inspects the buds to see which ones are breaking out and which ones are still sleeping. He notes his flowers’ slightest daily growth or decline.
If a gardener is so solicitous over flowers, who are here today and tomorrow are thrown into the fire, how much should we, as fathers, inspect our sons souls every single day. Their souls are as different every day as is a climbing rose in June
The heart changes EVERY SINGLE DAY. Today, what is his chief concern and chief joy? This is easier when young, but harder as the child gets older and tends to close up. Children close up for several different reasons: to shut the parents out because the parents are not liked; to shut everyone out because of shame; and because they are increasingly comfortable in a private, solitary inner place. And so on. Every silence is different.
If we have developed the practice of finding his heart every day when he is 5 years old, then when he is 15 we will understand the signals to interpret his silence, and he will be habituated and feel safe to talk about his inner privacy. But this will not happen if it the effort starts when the silence starts.
We need to avoid accepting as “normal” and inevitable what is only common. It is common to for adolescents (especially boys) to become closed up about their interior life, but is not inevitable.
It is more natural for the mother to try to find the child’s heart every day. But if the father does not do this as well, HE IS SERIOUSLY NEGLIGENT AND WILL FAIL IN SOME SERIOUS WAY. It takes more work for the father; it takes him more out of his zone of comfort.
As the child grows he learns about his own privacy, and will form very early what his inner sanctuary is used for. The parents want to be in on those decisions. But after the inner sanctuary is formed, the parents can never force themselves in. To force yourself into the inner sanctuary is to produce neuroses.
Teach them at pre-school age to recognize what is on their heart, then to talk openly with you about it.
Ask! “what is on your heart today?” Then, when he tells you, he must experience the conversation as a BLESSING. Never discipline or correct what is on the child’s heart.
Bedtime is a natural time for this exchange, when distractions are few. Later, this will become the basis for his prayer life, and the transition from talking about the heart and praying that same conversation is quite natural and easy. Whatever is on his heart is the focus of his payer for that day, instead of the typical list of “bless mommy, bless daddy, etc” Ask him “what did you like most today?” and give thanks for that; ask him “what concerns you today?” and make petition around that.